I was present for the birth of all three of my biological children

My first child, a son was born in 1974. My wife and I took a Lamaze course in natural childbirth and I was 26 and my first wife was 21. So, being young and sort of fearless as young people can be we decided to have our child at home because we knew enough to do this so we did. Also, the elecronics company we both worked at (she worked until she was 8 months along then stopped) was owned by people of the Bahai Faith which are sort of Sufi Mystics but also they believe in natural home births mostly with just family present at that time. So, they inspired my wife to do this too and I was sort of forced to go along with this idea. So, when the day came it was just my wife and I alone in our apartment with denatured alcohol and scissors and shoe string to tie off the umbilical cord. So, basically my son was born for about $25 in the course and equipment we bought to deliver him at home.

At the time I didn't really know what I was doing so I was a little scared that this might not turn out right but my wife as adamant we were doing this. So, I held her under the armpits with her squatting so gravity could help us. But, this didn't seem to work for her and after awhile I got tired. Then I said, "Let's go into the bathroom where the baby coming might seem more natural. Why don't you crown on the toilet then slip off to have him?" So we did that.

This turned out to be the best idea of all because I had no idea how much blood and amnionic fluid comes out along with a pregnancy. It filled our bathroom about 2 to 3 inches deep with blood and amnionic fluid and all that.

At first, my son was kind of blue or purple from coming through the birth canal so I massaged his arms and legs and soon he took on a white color and he started nursing right away.

When we returned for our AFter Birth Meeting at Lamaze it turned out we were the ONLY ones in our group of about 25 couples that actually had natural childbirth. So, people about fainted when they heard our story but in some ways the Lamaze leader was proud of us that we succeeded so well.

MY father and mother came over after the birth because we called them because they lived nearby.

From my point of view I never wanted to do this again because it was too scary and something might have gone wrong. But, I could also say my son was "Born Free" too which was kind of fun.

I helped deliver my second child a girl in a hospital and was present at my third child's birth too another daughter which was caesarian also in a hospital.

Note: Even though I never had any shots at all growing up and so have "Herd immunity" and have as a result an "1800s" kind of immune system which is much much stronger than someone who has had shots, I still think you should at the very least give your kids shots to prevent whooping cough.

I almost died from whooping cough at age 2 and my son also got it so by the time my two daughters were born I made sure they got the whooping cough shots so they didn't get whooping cough too.

I was raised in a way similar to Christian Science where we only went to doctors if we needed stitches or to set a broken bone or something like that.

But, I must say i watched a lot of people die in our church before their times because they wouldn't go to doctors even when they could have lived if they did.

So, I now believe American Doctors are some of the best diagnosticians in the world.

But, U.S. treatment by doctors often isn't the best for a variety of reasons. Mostly the problem is with the government and archaic regulations which cause a lot of unnecessary deaths in this country.

So, basically until I was about 46 and got married a 3rd time I basically almost never went to a doctor for anything. But, I had good enough health except for giardia in India and Nepal where we saw a foreign disease specialist because I weighed only as much as my skinniest in High school at 37 from Giardia then around 1985 and 1986 when we spent 4 months from December 1985 until April 1986 in Thailand, India and Nepal and Japan then.

This changed all my older kids (my son and two older step kids) to being citizens of the world and we all became world travelers ever since.

Once you see how amazing the world is you want to see more.

But, you have to be brave enough to deal with a whole lot of culture shock both going and coming.

The worst culture shock is not going for 2 weeks or 2 months or 4 months to a foreign country. The worst culture shock of all is when you come home. That's that worst. Worse than anything you will experience overseas.

But, there is a familiarity of home that eventually seems to help after a few months of horror of seeing your culture for what it really is which is not what you see on TV at all.

And you know how other people feel when they come here too both all the good things as well as all the bad things about living here.

Example: You are much more likely to have the opportunity to make a living here than in other countries. But, you are also much more likely to feel very alone here than in other countries too.

This is the paradox of world travel.

People tend to take care of each other more in other countries than here. Here, you might make a living but you are completely on your own too and often alone.

You tend to be alone less in other countries just because of the way most world cultures take care of each other simply because there is no social security or unemployment compensation or things like that in most countries in the world. So, if people didn't take care of each other they would already all be dead. And since they are still alive they might help you too which is done in different ways in each country. And meeting people who are near death every day is much different than meeting paranoid Americans who are afraid of their shadows often. When you could die any moment there is an openness that is remarkable in people who are on the edge of death every single day of their lives from birth until they die with no health care, no unemployment compensation, and often no jobs for years as an adult or way to survive without help from their friends and family.

The world is really a very amazing place for those of you brave enough to discover it!